


The last thing these eyes see

by Bioluminex



Series: Is there a heaven for androids? [2]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Amanda is a bitch, Angst, Blindness, Disabled Character, Gen, Kamski is a legend, Major Character Injury, Poor Connor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-12 03:22:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15330633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bioluminex/pseuds/Bioluminex
Summary: Connor lost his sight as a result of an investigation gone wrong, but being blind isn't the worst part. It's the nightmares.Directly follows "I'm in over my head".





	The last thing these eyes see

**Author's Note:**

> I highly recommend reading "I'm in over my head" although this one can be read without the first part. Some stuff might not make complete sense.

After a time, Connor starts to get used to being blind.

Navigating Hank's house is difficult at first but a little reliance on memory and moving slowly makes it become a task that's at least accomplishable. For the first couple of weeks, he was constantly catching himself on the legs of chairs or the corners of tables. Hank was careful to never move anything, and to return everything to the place it had come from.

Bit by bit, Connor's memory creates a detailed map of the house to the point he can retrieve items by pattern or feel. He relies heavily on his other biocomponents to “see” the world around him and, although it can be hindering, it is somewhat fascinating to learn how to rewrite how he lives on a day-to-day manner.

Hank is endlessly proud and supportive, always close by but giving Connor the opportunity to figure it out on his own. When the lieutenant is home from the precinct, he keeps a watchful eye on the android, although there’s really no need; the kid is usually tucked against his side listening to Hank talk about his day or whatever they’re watching on the TV. Hank knows Connor is desperate to return to work with him, but without his eyes, investigating a crime scene as he normally does would be less effective and a hindrance – on both the android and the case.

Recently, Hank's been looking into a rogue android attacking both humans and androids at random. To Connor, it sounds like they're acting out of fear. He wonders if it could be the same one who shoved him into the frozen pool – the location and their erratic behaviour definitely adds up.

For now, Connor is happy to listen and provide his own opinions, the wheels visibly turning as he tries to piece together any information Hank describes. He feels useful. It’s the best part of his day.

Nights are still the worst part, for both of them. Connor has taken to sleeping in Hank's bed, and Hank doesn’t honestly care because it’s a lot easier to deal with Connor when he's dealing with another nightmare.

But it's not a pleasant experience to be woken up at two o' clock in the morning nearly every night by an android having a screaming fit. Hank wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy (okay, maybe Gavin) but it's enough to leave him shaken every time.

The one good outcome is Connor's never brought up the mention of assisted suicide again. It's all too real for Hank to hear something he struggled with for years suddenly be planted in his android's thoughts. The ideation is driven by fear, not loss, but it's the same in the end and Hank is terrified Connor will bring it up again.

Connor, of all people. Connor, who discarded his programming and embraced his life. Connor, who’s only begun to learn how to live.

Unless Amanda is enough to drive him to the belief death is his only way out.

Connor's never spoken about Amanda, not while in his right mind, at least. It’s always been in the foggy hours between sleep and being woken from the nightmare. Hank has stirred awake more than once to hear Connor mumbling incoherently, LED blaring crimson, face contorted in fear. And its always he same cry before he shatters.

_Please no… Amanda!_

Hank has never asked. Maybe he should.

 

 

For what could possibly be the first time in years, Hank pulls out his reading glasses and a dog-eared copy of an old paperback crime novel he hasn’t read in forever. Connor is beside him, lying on his side with his back facing Hank, but he's enough in Hank's peripheral vision to see the calm cerulean LED turning slowly.

“Lieutenant?” Connor inquires softly. “Aren't you going to sleep?” Hank reaches out and gently pats the deviant's shoulder.

“It's okay, kiddo. I’m gonna read for a bit. You get some sleep.”

“Androids don’t sleep. We enter a low power mode that-"

“Same thing in my opinion. Sleep has an easier ring to it,” Hank turns the page. He hears a soft noise – _wait, did he just laugh?_ – before all falls peacefully silent.

 

 

Hank is fifty-four pages in and starting to feel a little heavy-lidded when he feels the bed shift in response to Connor's sudden jerk.

He sets the book down and slides over, easily coming in view of the LED blinking rapidly between red and yellow.

“Connor,” he whispers. “Hey, it's okay. I'm right here.”

The android shudders, curling in on himself. A low whine escapes the back of his throat. Hank, out of ideas and too afraid to startle him awake outright, runs a gentle hand through Connor's hair and presses a reassuring kiss to the violently blinking temple.

“H-Hank,” Connor mumbles, face turning his way. He’s still locked in. “It's her. She's here.”

_Amanda._

“You're gonna be alright, Connor.” Hank assures firmly. “It's just a dream. Can you hear me? _It's just a dream.”_

The LED suddenly pulses _white_ and Connor _wails_ , arching as though in agony. A thrill races up Hank's spine at the bloodcurdling sound, and he goes numb with panic.

_“Connor!”_

 

 

“If you thought Lieutenant Anderson would keep you safe from me, you’re a fool to believe that,” Amanda reprimands. Connor shudders in the freezing cold of the blizzard encapsulating them, arms hugged tightly around his chest.

 _It’s not real,_ he assures himself fervently. _It’s only a dream. Hank is right there._

Amanda laughs darkly. “Connor, my dear boy, it’s time you faced the fact I’ve been real all along. You never did escape me.”

Connor wants to ignore her, but something feels wrong, like a live current running through his system, scrambling his coding. He drops to his knees with a grunt.

“RK800 #313 248 317,” Amanda says mechanically, and Connors head snaps up in horror. _No, no!_

“Termination commencing in one minute and fifty-nine seconds. Deactivation imminent. Standby…”

Connor has never felt fear like this before. It's almost paralyzing.

He needs… oh, god, what does he need?

_Hank. Hank can stop her._

“She's going… she going to d-deactivate me, H-Hank,” he cries, the cold numbing his throat. Amanda’s glare is poison.

“I _nearly_ forgot,” she murmurs, the sweetness of her voice tainted by venom. “A gift. I’m sure you would like to say goodbye.”

Connor flinches as she reaches out, fingers brushing his temple, and everything goes white.

 

 

The android vaults upright, sheer horror written across his face. Hank sheds all preliminaries and pulls Connor into a bear hug, surprising the android for only a second before the gesture is returned. Hank almost feels his ribs threatening to break under the force of Connor's arms.

“Jesus, kid. What the fuck _happened_?”

Connor's face is buried against his shoulder but he can feel his mouth moving as he responds muffledly. “She… Amanda tried to deactivate me. This time it wasn’t a dream. She got into my programming somehow.”

“H-How did you stop her?” All of this is beyond Hank, and his brain his racing to keep up. He doesn’t even know _who_ Amanda is, other than that she’s been a source of distress for Connor – and of contention for _him_.

“I…” Connor hesitates, stiffening slightly as strange static noise escapes him.

Hank feels his stomach drop and pulls back to see his partner's face. “Connor, talk to me.”

Connor is struggling for words, mouth opening and closing as he tries to structure a sentence. Then his eyes blink and focus on Hank's face, widening slightly.

**Optical Unit – Online**

**Vision Restored to Maximum Capacity**

“…n-no,” he chokes out.

 

 

Tears leak down Connor's cheeks, the saline tinted faintly blue against his pale skin. Hank has never seen an android cry, let alone Connor, and it's upsetting as it's disturbing.

Worse still is the glowing white LED on the side of his head, gradually fading out piece by piece, indicating his time is very real and very short.

Hank wants to yell, to punch something. He wants to do anything other than watch Connor slowly shutdown in front of him, with no control over it whatsoever.

“How did Amanda do it?” Hank demands, his tone more that of a police officer than a friend. Connor flinches a little, but his eyes are steady, locked on Hank's.

He can _see_. Amanda’s parting gift.

The cruelest gift she could imagine.

“She was still in my system software. She’s built into me,” Connor replies quietly. “She’s designed as my model's main handler.”

“Amanda is a program,” Hank frowns. “Can _she_ be, I dunno, turned _off?”_

“It's possible to shutdown her server in Cyberlife Tower but…” Connor swallows. The saline is trickling down the back of his throat. “I’m already dead, Hank.”

Hank is thinking, frantically. He doesn’t have time. He needs to act. Amanda is a program in Connor. Cyberlife made Connor, so who made Amanda?

“Kamski!” Hank grabs Connor's shoulders. “How long do we have?”

“Fifty seconds.”

Connor doesn’t waste a moment and makes the call.

 

 

“Elijah Kamski? This is Connor. We met in November.”

“I remember all of my designs,” Kamski answers. “But onto the point at hand. Chloe indicates you have forty seconds until permanent deactivation?”

“Yes, and we need your help. Amanda-"

“Open the remote access panel,” Kamski directs, and Connor tears off his shirt and exposes his naked back. Hank watches the artificial skin melt away to reveal smooth white plastic.

“Hank, press in and up,” Connor murmurs, rolling onto his stomach and indicating to a point on his lower back. Hank scrambles up next to him and digs his thumbs in, pushing up. A square plate depresses and slides out of sight.

“Lieutenant Anderson,” Kamski’s voice rings through Connor's vocal synthesizer. “Thirty seconds. Locate the switch at the top end of the panel, under Connor's spine.”

Hank reaches in gingerly, fingers brushing metal innards and wiring. Blue lights illuminate his hand. Connor jerks as Hank's hand comes into contact with a bundle of black wires coiled neatly around a section of his metal spine. _Nerves_ , Hank thinks, whispering an apology as he gropes around and up, straining to feel for the switch Kamski mentioned.

“H-Hank, _hurry!”_ Connor sobs, pressing his face into the sheets. He’s trembling, his entire body turning white, utterly exposed and vulnerable.

Hank feels a rigid piece of plastic _just_ _there_ inside of the spine and, sending up a silent plea, presses hard. The switch clicks audibly and Connor gasps, back arching and trapping Hank's hand painfully. His skin _ripples_ and the lights inside his body go dark as he collapses.

“Connor. _Connor!”_ Hank rips his hand loose, feeling metal score deeply against his skin, but pays it little mind. He rolls Connor onto his back; the android's eyes are blank, staring at the ceiling.

The LED is dim, pale silver. Lifeless.

Hank pushes away, body seizing up as his very being rebels against what gut instinct already knows. He presses his bleeding hand over his mouth.

The sleek white shape of the machine lies across Hank's bed, as still as any corpse.

 

 

“Manual shutdown,” Kamski says over the brim of a glass of red wine. Hank rolls a beer bottle between his palms, gazing out the window at the landscape beyond. A Chloe android stands on his other side, her blue eyes soft and emotional with deviancy.

It's been three weeks.

“I killed him,” Hank whispers blankly. “What I did… it killed him.”

“Better you than Amanda,” Kamski states, finishing his wine and setting the glass at his feet, rather than handing it to his android. “Connor knew what you were doing, Lieutenant. Don’t assume you took his life without his consent.”

_Hank, I want you to shoot me._

The old officer takes a swig from his bottle but holds the liquid in his mouth for a moment, mulling over his thoughts.

Connor trusted him, he trusted him completely. He _knew_ Hank could live with knowing it was he who'd pulled the trigger, rather than it be by his own hand.

“Is there…” he clears his throat, tries again. “Is there any way to reactivate him?”

Kamski glances at Hank, and one shoulder lifts into a casual shrug. “Connor was a remarkable example of his kind. I would suggest you honour his memory. He would prefer to be remembered, not grieved for.”

“I’ll grieve him if I damn well want to,” Hank snarls, burning with sudden rage. “He was my partner, my friend!”

“But he was not your son,” Kamski stated gently. Hank's vision goes white and his tenth grind together, self-restraint a nearly-forgotten thing.

It takes several minutes to understand what Kamski means:

It wasn’t _Hank's_ fault.

“No,” he agrees reluctantly. “But he meant just as much to me.”

Kamski picks up his wine glass and takes the beer from Hank, a faint smile on his lips. “He would be happy to hear that,” he says. “Considering how much _you_ meant to him.”

Chloe comes forward to take the drinks with a small smile, her gaze lingering a moment too long on Kamski's. She disappears through the side door, presumably leading to a bedroom or kitchen.

Kamski reaches into the pocket of his housecoat and produces a small white box. He stares at it for a second, contemplating, then hands it to Hank. It's fairly light, but something shuffles inside.

“What is this?”

“A gift,” Kamski says, gesturing to the box. “Open it.”

Hank lifts the lid of the tiny box and a smooth gleam catches his eye. He reaches in, one finger gliding over the object, a mirror image to the constricting organ beating hard in Hank's chest.

An artificial heart.

A lump catches in Hank's throat, and he has to blink the tears from his eyes. “Fuck,” he whispers. “Is this…?”

“Connor's heart took the brunt of the deactivation. He managed to reroute his biocomponents’ critical failure to this one alone, to remain in operation long enough to prevent premature shutdown,” Kamski smiles again. It's a surprisingly soft smile. “I was able to repair most of the damage, but it no longer operates properly. It could be a keepsake to remember him by.”

“I doubt I could ever forget the plastic goof,” Hank admits, a tear tracking down his cheek into the wiry hairs of his beard. “Thanks.”

Taking it as his sign to leave, Hank turns away, clutching the little box. Kamski clears his throat before he can get far.

“I have a question for you, Lieutenant,” he says. “If you would be so obliged to answer it?”

Hank shrugs. Kamski takes it as a yes and steps forward.

“If Connor had never become deviant, would you have trusted him enough to remain his partner?”

Hank barely had to consider the question.

“If Connor hadn’t become deviant, I wouldn’t be alive,” he answers. “I owe it all to him.”

Kamski nods slowly, blue eyes piercing.

The soft hiss of the siding door draws Hank's attention and he sees Chloe looking at Kamski. She grins, stepping aside, and a slender figure follows, LED a soft blue.

Hank feels his heart skip a beat as warm brown eyes focus in on him.

“Lieutenant Anderson, my name is Connor,” the android greets. “I'm the android sent by Cyberlife.”

For a moment, all Hank can do is stare at the android, its quiet and watchful gaze sweeping over the lieutenant as it – most likely – analyzes him. A dark shadow brushes over his thoughts. He knows that look all too well; he knows two remarkably different Connors, and this one makes him tense.

“His memories have been stored,” Kamski says softly at Hank's shoulder, making him jump slightly at the proximity. “It will take anywhere from forty-eight to seventy-two hours for them to reupload.”

_Stored, not erased._

It should be bad news, he should be angry or disappointed, really. But he isn’t. The old Hank would've been but he’s not that man anymore. All he wants to do is hug the android, regardless of if he is a machine or not.

Because it's _Connor._

It doesn’t matter _what_ Connor it is.

Hank registers the flicker of yellow at his unexpected approach, but he pulls Connor into his arms, tears threatening to spill.

“I thought I fucking lost you,” he chokes out. “I’m so sorry, Connor. I’m so fucking sorry.”

The android is still, arms loose at its sides, letting Hank hang onto him like his life depends on it. The body against Hank's is hard, cool to the touch. Machine.

But then… the android goes ahead and astonishes them all once again.

“There's no need to apologize, Hank,” Connor whispers, his arms wrapping around the lieutenant, and Hank sees Kamski's surprised reflection in the glass the moment he feels his own.

“Thank you for saving me.”

The tears are falling, but Hank doesn’t even give a damn. He couldn’t be happier.

 


End file.
